Sunday, June 25, 2006

a 17 year olds take on An Inconvenient Truth

My wife, myself and our youngest son, (he's seventeen) finally saw Gores movie tonight. We almost drove all the way to Madison WI. last weekend to see it and and then found out it would be in our city this weekend, so we postponed our viewing till tonight. I am glad we did. We were getting ready to leave just as ElizabethD put up her Saturday night WYFP diary and I had time to make a quick snarky post about Kos being the KingPin when my son came in to tell us of his plans for tonight. It of course didn't include us. At first that is.Follow me below for just a minute so I can tell you how the movie affected him and his thoughts on the matter.

So the conversation went something like this. "Hey dad, me and some friends are going to the movies." "No shit? So are me and Mom, leaving in about ten minutes". "Which one?" "Gores movie, the one I been telling you about". "You mean the global warming thing"? "Yep, have you seen the trailer for it?""Nope". "Here, I got it bookmarked, check it out". That was all it took. After he watched the trailer he called his friends and said he would be going out with Mom and Dad this Saturday night. Pretty damn impressive trailer I'd say.

On the way there we listened to some classic rock station, cranked at mach10, doing one of those five in a row things, and tried to figure out if it was Black Sabbath or Ronnie Dio's band. Turned out it was Sabbath when Dio was fronting it. My wife and son were right, I didn't get a clue till they played Heaven and Hell. So much for my teen age hard rock background.We get to the theater, the parking lot is pretty full. We left all our commie paraphernalia at home except for the magnetic "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" sticker on the back of the minivan. I know, I know, minivan. So we sold out, hey, we got three kids and two huge dogs. Anyway.. the parking lot looked just like any other lot. Walking in we were looking for some sign that would indicate other like-minded folks were there. The only thing that stood out was a certified 1970 something VW hippy bus. Cool, things are looking up.

We get our tickets, popcorn, cherry licorice and a couple of those 1/2 gallon soda's and sit down about 5 rows from the front. There was probably about 100 people in our theater, the other ones must have been packed.About the movie. For me it cemented my love for the man as a human being trying to do what he passionately believes, and is the right thing to do. I loved it. If you haven't seen it yet, do so. The three of us watched without blinking, I think we realized that we are so fucking hungry for some honest compassionate leadership, that it almost hurt to watch. Afterwards we were the second to last to leave. I actually felt like crying. As we were walking out there were two middle age women close to the door. We stopped and engaged them for a few minutes. After a short conversation I determined they would make good Kossacks.

My son had been relatively quiet afterwards, when we got to the car we stood outside and started talking. When I asked him what he thought, he said he had no idea it had gone this far. He said that at school and from everything he's read, it sounded like they had it under control, that they had been working on it for about a decade. He was visibly upset. When I asked him how he felt he offered that he felt like either crying, or breaking something. We spent the next ten minutes or so talking, not just about the movie, but wondering just how different the world would be right now if Gore had been rightfully sworn in as President. It was a kind of melancholy conversation until we got to talking about action. Then he told me he was going to get all his friends to go see it. He perked up a little.

Dad, I have so many ideas about what we can do. That's why I want to go into aerospace engineering, everything they do trickles down into other technologies and industries. Most of the advanced technology starts there and I would be the one designing that stuff!Think about it, I could actually make a huge difference in how the future is shaped for all of us! I just hope I am not too late.

We talked some more. What I saw and heard in him tonight is a young man who is conscious and aware of the world he lives in. He has fears that our generation has fucked things up beyond repair. He is angry and yet also see's how complacency has led us to this point. Both in our political situation, and the state of the living, breathing earth. He is hungry for change.I am very proud of my son, not just because he is mine and I raised him for ten years without a mother, or because his intellect is so much more advanced than mine, but because he has a huge compassionate heart and loves the world and life. Go get'em Eddie. I believe in you.